


In For A Penny, In For A Galleon

by MJ (mjr91)



Series: So A Lawyer and A Wizard Walk Into A Bar [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Fred Weasley Lives, Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sequel, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 03:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10710810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjr91/pseuds/MJ
Summary: Severus Snape has a legal problem.  And a friend who's in the legal business.  Only he's a prosecutor.  And an American.  And a muggle.





	In For A Penny, In For A Galleon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Abitfairytailforme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abitfairytailforme/gifts).



> Sequel to Saturday Shopping. In an alternate Potterverse where Snape and all Weasleys are alive post-Battle of Hogwarts, as they should be.

The butterbeer flowed freely at Manhattan’s The Ugly Muggle, pseudo-Irish pub and magical community – Americans didn’t just say wizarding, which left potions master Severus Snape highly confused – gathering place that rainy evening.  The company was better than the weather, it being one of those days when ice fell, turning to water on the way down and re-freezing on contact with streets and sidewalks.  The company, at least Snape’s, was muggle – er, non-mag, as the Americans insisted on saying for some absurd reason, but it was Manhattan ADA Rafael Barba, the one human of either wizarding or muggle ilk with whom Snape felt kinship.  They were both the best in their respective fields, but outsiders to some degree, insufficiently respected for their accomplishments, insufficiently rewarded, insufficiently loved by any but the other.  Both had been attacked in public, in their respective press, for doing the right thing.  And each was a snarky, sarcastic bastard with an appetite for good alcohol, each able to let down their guard in the other’s approving presence.

The wards of The Ugly Muggle allowed Barba in even without Snape escorting him within.  Snape had thought that his muggle companion had some sort of wizarding ancestry, and a wizarding DNA test (Snape had performed it at The Ugly Muggle one night, and Barba had blinked to see an animated quill trace his ancestry in gold sparks in the air before him) had in fact showed kinship on Barba’s mother’s side to Carlos Lopez, one of the twelve founding aurors of the United States – the closest thing America had to wizarding – er, magical community – royalty.  “You’d better own it,” had said Fletcher Blattersuff, proprietor of The Ugly Muggle.  “That family tree and your magical genes will let you in any magical place in America.  Seriously.  The wards everywhere are set to bow and scrape when a Lopez approaches.  And there aren’t too many known Lopez heirs remaining.”  Since the repeal of the Rapoport Law that had forbidden American magic users, unlike British wizards, from associating with non-mag muggles, the last of the Lopezes had married out, into a non-mag family.  Barba was one of the five Lopez heirs.

Snape was grousing into a perfectly good double Glenlivet about his latest predicament – there was always a predicament, it seemed.  He had a fairly serious charge of unauthorized wand discharge in a public place near Diagon Alley.  It couldn’t be helped, he insisted – blame a Weasley stunt candy that he’d been slipped near the Weasleys’ blasted shop.  As a Hogwarts instructor, and one of its least loved, Weasley prank candy seemed to have been invented just to plague him.

“And on top of the whole sodding mess,” Snape sighed, “I’ve paid good galleons for my defense.  I hired Ichabod Thwattercod, who’s supposed to be one of the best practitioners before the Ministry’s Criminal Citations Division, but the man’s broken out into Polka Dotted Spackle Fever.  And nobody else that I’m willing to hire, because the wizarding defense bar for the Ministry is a gaggle of drunken fools, is able to take another case after all of the arrests after the Hipster Harpies concert last week.”  He drained his glass.  “I don’t suppose… you… could represent me?”

His friend looked across his own partly-raised glass at the potions master, green eyes befuddled.  “I’m not licensed to practice in the UK, Severus.”

Snape waved a hand dismissively.  “No matter.  We don’t really have a wizarding bar admission.  You just have to know wizarding law.”

Barba sipped and sighed.  “I’ll see if I can get time away from work, but where am I going to get a crash course in British wizarding law?”

Now Snape grinned.  When he did so, it was the sort of grin that caused small children and small animals to flee.  He pulled a small object out from beneath his robes.  “This,” he chortled, “is a time turner.  You can turn time forward or backward.  My very best student, Hermione Granger, used this one to adjust time so she had more study time.  They’re very rare and tricky to use.  Miss Granger was concerned for my defense on this, and I told her I might ask you, so she has lent it to me to give you more time to prepare.  You could spend a year studying, and a year representing me – you shouldn’t need more than a couple of hours for the hearing, really – and never miss a day of work.  It should only work for a wizard – a magic user – but if you haven’t enough Lopez blood for it to work for you on your own, I can always set it for you.”

“Or I can.”  The comment came over Barba’s shoulder as a lanky blond man leaned in.  “Nice time turner, Professor.  Snape, is it?  You’re a legend, you know?  We used your potions book in my class at Ilvermorny.  Right?”  Snape looked up blankly.

Barba, on the other hand, turned three shades of green that complemented his eyes when he saw the blue ones beneath the blond hair.  “Carisi, what the hell are you doing here?”

Carisi laughed.  “Only mag users come here, Barba.  And you.  Last time I was here I heard you were the Lopez non-mag that the building’s wards like.”

Barba could have wept in his drink.  Sonny Carisi was a mag?  It figured.  Nothing else could explain the ridiculous moustache he’d sported when he first joined the NYPD, or his original foul taste in clothing.  Barba had noted that most mag users seemed to have difficulty at fitting into muggle (all right, he liked the word better than he liked “non-mag,” as Snape did) fashion, that they didn’t altogether blend in with society at large.  Neither did Barba, of course, but that was due entirely to the far superior elegance of his wardrobe, a precise and deliberate peacocking that had enhanced his career and led him to… well, a relationship of some sort with an oddly-nosed man with greasy hair and sweeping robes, and a sarcastic semi-friendship with the most ludicrous detective in the universe, who was also, Merlin’s balls – he was picking up some of Severus’ curses, damn it – a law student.  And, to top it off, another wizard, who was now going to cling to Barba like a leech, undoubtedly.

But where were Barba’s few, if any, manners?  “Severus, this is Dominick Carisi, Junior.  He thinks everyone calls him Sonny.  He’s a police detective I’m frequently forced to work with.  And I do mean forced.”

“Pleased to meetcha,” Carisi said to Snape. “Can’t wait to tell my sisters I met the great Professor Snape!  Boy, will they be jealous.”

“The pleasure,” Snape assured him, “is not returned.  However, I suppose you’ll want to say something else, so pray continue in as few words as possible.”

“Man, you two could be twins; you sound exactly alike!” Carisi muttered to the two seated men, “I couldn’t help hearing what you were talking about, and I know ADA Barba didn’t tell you I’m in law school.  I’m in a special electives program at Fordham on international magical law.  I just finished the semester on British wizarding law and procedure.  Want me to tutor you, Barba?”

The idea that Sonny Carisi, bane of Rafael Barba’s existence, knew something that Barba needed to learn was excruciating.  But the idea of practicing in a British wizarding court?  Now, that was bait he could barely resist.  “All right, Carisi.  You can run it past me.  We’ll start tomorrow night at my office, six o’clock.  You operate this time turner thing.”

“Can I shadow you in wizarding court?”

An internal groan.  “You can shadow me in wizarding court.”  He looked over at his friend, Snape.  “Do I have to wear a powdered wig and a robe?”

Snape looked down at his drink to keep from smirking in Barba’s face.  “Do you want to?  If so, yes.  If not… you’ll find English wizarding dress a bit peculiar.  Beetlebaum Packenhoefer used to sit as chief justice of the supreme wizarding court in a wig, an ermine collar, and bedroom slippers.  And nothing else.  At all.”

“I’ll stick to Armani.”  Barba edged an empty seat out and nodded to Carisi.  “You might as well sit, detective.  This is going to be a long, long evening.”  


 


End file.
